Equality in the Home...

Personally, I don't think that the system is good idea because housework is NOT WORK. It is a part of life style, so I don't mean that the housework should be the task for wife. Since the house work is the essential part of our life, we should cooperate with each other to do the housework. It shouldn't be the task for ONLY WIFE. I strongly disagree to such an awful idea. I don't think that it's not suitable for Japan. There are some of reasons why it might not work. First of all, it's difficult for Japanese people to understand the system. Also, some conflicts between wife and husband might be happened. In my parents case, about 60% of houseworks are tasks for my mother; for example, washing dishes, cooking, cleaning up, managing the money (income and outgo), etc. On the other hand, tidying the garden, cleaning the toilet and bath, etc. I think that this has worked so far. In the future, when I get married someday, I want to help my wife as far as I can; for example, cooking, washing dishes, tidying the garden, shopping and more. I'm sure I must LOVE my wife in the future, so I want to make her happy and spend a happy life with her and children. In order to come true such a wonderful dream, I should struggle with what I have to do now. I guess what I have to do at first is JOB HUNTING. I strive to do all my best I can do. Also, I want to get my girl friend. I have never dated with a girl though....(sigh)

Japanese Gender Issue...

As for Japanese gender issue, I don't think that there exists a lot of gender issues compared to other countries. However, I have experienced one thing which might be gender issue in Japan. It was about a movie ticket. As most of you know, in Japan, women can buy the ticket at special price on a special day;for example, on every Wednesday. I don't know if it's the gender issue or not, but I have wondered why there is not special day for boys or men to buy the ticket at special price. This is my question. What do you think so? Is it kind of gender issues? One more thing, I discussed gender issues in terms of working condition in Japan with my seminar-mates in my seminar class. One of that which made me think was about salary disparity between men and women in Japan. As you can imagine, men can get more high salary than women because there are some reasons. Men can work at a company for a long time, whereas most of women may retire to work because of marriage and taking care of their children. For companies, there is risks to hire women and give high salary to them because they cannot get positive effects and benefits if women retire their jobs. I know it's really hard to solve this issue because we need to get supports from the Japanese government; for example, children allowance, special holiday to take care of children, reducing the number of overtime works, etc. There are a lot of problems in Japan; it's not only working condition but other gender issues. We should struggle with that kind of issues to make more comfortable country than what Japan is.

Japanese Sub Culture...

One of Japanese subculture is Japanese Anime culture, I would say. It's no longer Japanese small culture in Japan. The original place where Anime was born is Akihabara, one of small town in Tokyo. There are many Japanese illustlaters, producers and fans as well. They learn a lot of techniques by themself and try to make many animations because they are sick to make it; I mean they REALLY love them. Every seasons they make not only animations but many goods of animations, such as gloceries, novels, songs, games, etc. Although there are many places where you can buy what you want to buy goods of animations, the original place, Akihabara, is best place you can see and experience them. Nowadays, Anime is very important for Japanese national income because most of travelers who live in other countries like them or have an interests about them. Since they spent a lot of money for the Japanese animation, Japan cannot regard Anime as the small culture.

My future

I cannot mention and explain my future easily because there are many things I want to come true. When it comes to my future job, I want to work at a company which do business in Asian market, such as Thailand, Malaysia, etc. Since I have been studying not only English but also Spanish, I want to make it useful for my future. In order to achieve it, I need to get a fascinating job. I will start hunting job from this December. On the other hand, when it comes to my life, I want to marry women and make an awesome family. My ideal family is to spent a time together, smile always, travel many times, etc. What I want to do is to make people happy and smile; it’s not only my family but friends I love. As I mentioned above, in order to achieve it, I need the job I am fascinated. Actually, it is a bit hard to get that kind of jobs because there are a lot of types of job. I need a long time to research and visit companies to do interview; for example, how much you can earn money annually, how many days you can take a rest, etc. I have a lot of things I want to come true in the future. What I all have to do is to do what I can do now. I believe what I do now is somehow connected to my cool future.

My Neighborhood

I used to live in Ishikawa until 4 years old. After that, my family moved to Kyoto, my current address, from there. In the meantime, I had never met any people who live in other countries (foreigners); however, I got an experience to meet them at that time. One of my neighborhood was Canadian. He is a teacher who has taught English to his students at Doshisya-women's college. At first, as you can image, I was afraid of him because it was the first time to meet people who live in other countries. One day, however, my mother recommended me to study English at his house. Although I was a bit nervous to do, but I was interested in a different language, English. Of course, I couldn't understand what he said to me because I'd never experienced to live in countries where people speak English. Even so, my understanding of English was getting better lesson by lesson. About 1 year later, I was able to understand well what he said. Also, my prejudice for foreigners was changed to better one. I don't think this is not funny story, but it's really important for me to study English. Thanks to him, now I study English at K.G. university. What is more, I've been thinking to use English for my future job. I would like to use English in my business career. I and he is still good relationship and sometimes we talk on Skype, FaceBook, etc. Someday, I would like to give him something wonderful, instead of my thankful feeling.

Post-disscusion Writing

Esperanza, a main character in the novel, is a girl. She loves her family and cares about her sister (You can see on page 8). She doesn't like her name because of some reasons. One of them is that her name is a bit strange to pronounce. In fact, she was made fun of her name in her class. She thinks her name doesn't suit for what she is. Her name is named for her grand-grandmother. What's worse, she was born in the chinese year of the horse; the horse year implies bad luck, especially for female. She wants to more like real her and change herself by changing her name. I don't think her background and mine are not very similar. Common points are that both of us love family so much and siblings as well. In my house, I care about what my brothers do. If they do something wrong, I give them some advices or tell them not to do that. What the most I want to mention is about name. I know she doesn't like her name well; however, she should have a confidence about her name because her parents name. For me, I really like my name because my lovely parents named it after they consider what good name is. I really proud of my name.

Japanese Culture

Punctuality is one of Japanese culture I proud of. The reason I proud of it is that I can make my schedule easily. For example, if I go to Tokyo, I check a schedule about a transportation; then, I can make my schedule. However, if Japan is not punctual, I cannot make my schedule easily because I have to think about the case trains delay and air plane as well. Actually, when I was in canada, I had faced that kind of problems. One day, I made a plan to go shopping centre; however, I couldn't go there becasue the bus I would get on didn't come on time. Others I find a little tiresome are Japanese service. As many people who live in other countries know, there is great quality of service in Japanese market, shopping centre, cloth shop, and more places. You can get the great services there. For example, clerks recommend clothes which are nice to you or they help you by doing many things. I know it is good for customers; however, I think it is too kind to shop. In other words, it is a bit troublesome for customers who want to enjoy shopping like ME. When I go to the cloth shop, they always close to me and say, "what do you want to buy? May I check your size of cloth? I recommend you to buy this cloth." These are exactly great service for the customers who want to shop; however, it is not always good for everyone. As I mentioned above, I love Japanese culture so much and can tell you a lot of them. There are many aspects of Japanese culture I proud of, whereas there are also some aspects of it I find a little tiresome.